Violence Erupts In London March

LONDON, Oct. 27-A sea of yelling demonstrators surged through downtown London with Vict Cong flags Sunday in a massive anti-American demonstration that broke up in violent scenes around the U.S. Embassy.

About 7000 protest marchers thronged Grosvenor Square and hurled firecrackers, smoke bombs, and other missiles. Most were cleared from in front of the embassy after a siege lasting nearly three hours.

Twenty-four demonstrators were reported under arrest by early evening, some for carrying Knives, paint sprays, and weighed chains. Five policemen were among 30 persons needing hospital attention. Hundreds of demonstrators and policemen suffered bruises and other minor injuries.

Looting was reported as darkness fell over Grosvenor Square, which was left looking like a garbage dump under piles of torn pamphlets and banners.

Officers estimated the much-heralded Protest rally drew 30,000 demonstrators into the capital-about half the number expected by organizers, but still the biggest demonstration seen in London for many years.

Most of the London demonstrators marched cheerfully and peacefully through downtown areas in a mile-long parade, ten abreast to a rally in Hyde Park. Many of them-a third by some estimates-were hippie girls in slacks and sweaters.

But a hard core of about 200 Mao-style Communists, along with anarchists and other extremists, defied the organizers and swarmed into Grosvenor Square looking for trouble.

Showers of missiles, ranging from stones to bags of flour, fell on hardpressed police defending the embassy from the shoving, shouting mob. Inside, 11 U.S. Marines stood guard.

Demonstrators burned an American flag, chanted, "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh," and set fire to a pile of boxes in the street near the embassy. Missiles shattered windows of the American Automobile Association building and other structures around the square.

In the general climate of disorder police reported an explosion badly damaged the John F. Kennedy memorial at Runnymede.

At the London School of Economics, which students have taken over as a sanctuary and medical aid center, about 40 injured demonstrators were brought in by student-driven ambulances from Grosvenor Square.

Police, under Scotland Yard orders to treat the demonstrators as gently as possible, developed an effective technique for blocking them from the embassy.

Standing at times 50 feet deep, the bobbies let the demonstrators surge forward and almost absorbed them in a mass of blue uniforms. Then, as the big shove petered out, the police pushed them back firmly into line.